Archive for the ‘Stanford’ Category

The talk of the nation this week has been the over-celebration penalty that was called on Washington QB Jake Locker. We never gave our thoughts, so after everyone has, we will. Bad Rule. Correct Call. According to the rules, you can’t throw the ball high in the air. The ball Locker threw was in the air for 2.36 seconds. That qualifies as high. Should that rule be in the book? No. But it is and the official made the correct call. Besides, UW has to make the PAT, no matter how far it is. If you are truly a team trying to turn it around, you make that kick.

The Washington State game against Baylor has been moved to tomorrow night at 5:30. We were mildly excited because we were looking forward to relaxing after work and watching the game. Then it hit us, the game now won’t be on TV. Understandably, this is what’s best for the people of the Texas coast but, selfishly, we wish we could watch it.

We’ll find out this week if UCLA is the real deal. BYU sneanked out of Seattle with a win so they should be on high alert this week. The game is in Provo so it is going to be very important that the good Kevin Craft shows up for the Bruins.

USC-Ohio State is the game of the weekend. Everyone is focusing on Beanie Wells’ injured foot but we’re more interested in seeing how Mark Sanchez plays. OSU returns most of their defense, a defense that is considerably better that Virginia’s. Sanchez is going to need to play well, it doesn’t matter how many 5-star RBs the Trojans have.

Stanford has another tough game this week visiting TCU. The Horn Frogs are another one of those teams that it seems every year are looking to burst the BCS bubble. This game time has also been changed to an earlier start time on Saturday to avoid the hurricane. Stanford showed last week that they still have many holes to fill.

Hope everybody got a chance to watch the game last night. It was weird to watch a Pac-10 opener to start the season, on a Thursday night.

About the game, it was pretty damn evident that it was the first game of the season. Both teams were sloppy and unimpressive. We think it’s very important that we remember that it was the opening game for both teams. You can’t expect them to play like that the rest of the season. We think you’ll see significant improvement from both teams, especially Oregon State.

How werid was it that the two of the most prominent plays involved balls rolling out of the side of the endzone? The safety to put Stanford ahead for good, 22-20, and the fumble from Oregon State WR Darrell Catchings to seal the victory for the Cardinal. Catchings had no business trying to turn that into a TD. He had the first down and should have just got out of bounds. The Beavers still had a timeout remaining, would have been at the 3 yard line, and had Stanford on their heels.

We didn’t have time yesterday to post our pick for the game last night, but if you trust us, we won $1 from a buddy by taking Stanford +3.

Your going to start a brand new football team. You get to develop your team from the ground up. Do you start with a QB, RB, LB? No, you have got to start with the offensive line. Get yourself an experienced center or a solid left tackle.

Returning three starters, along with the health of RB Anthony Kimble means that the Cardinal may be ready to make some noise in the running game. With the QB situation still up in the air, the running game is going to have to make some serious strides if Stanford wants to rise to the middle of the Pac.

Pullman, WA – New head coach Paul Wulff gave the Cougars a grade of C+ for their first week of efforts. While the players may not be picking up the new playbook as fast as the coaches would like, they are definitely getting the hitting part down pat. A little fire after the play is over, showing that a 10th-place prediction doesn’t mean much in the land of wheat.

Seattle, WA – The University of Washington may soon hire a new Athletic Director. All we can say is, it’s about damn time. Having been without a permanent hire since January, the Huskies need to find some stability in their athletic programs. They currently have a head football coach who knows less about his starting QB’s injury than the kid’s father. Or at least Scott Locker is willing to share the information with the media, while the tight-lipped Willingham prefers to play dumb. Also, moving over to the Sports Blogging Network in the next week or two is the UW Football Blog.

Eugene, OR – Big love for Oregon DB (what position does he really play? Safety? Rover? We don’t know, but want to.) Patrick Chung who Sporting News says might be the best defensive player in the country! It seems everybody in the conference is having QB problems, but Oregon’s QBs looked decent in their scrimmage Saturday. It’s only 19 more days until the hated Huskies arrive in Eugene.

Los Angeles, CA – With UCLA starter Ben Olson getting hurt and subsequently being out eight weeks, the QB race is suddenly wide open again. The coaches want to have a starter in place in exactly two weeks, so we’ll see who decides to take the reigns.

Tempe, AZ – The nomadic Ryan McFoy may have finally found his place on the field, as a linebacker. It has to be tough getting moved around like that, although forgetting your thigh pads will get you noticed.

Berekley, CA – After a week of practice and three days in pads, injuries at California are starting to add up. It’s good to hear that RB Jahvid Best is finally returning to full health, something that Cal will need if it wants to finish near the top of the conference.

Palo Alto, CA – With a new defensive coordinator, the Cardinal defense returns 11 players who made starts last season and hope to improve on last year’s ninth-worst Pac-10 defense. In recruiting news, Stanford has offered a scholarship to Joe Montana’s son. Nick Montana is currently a junior who is competing for the starting QB job at Oaks Christian High.

Time for a little update on where the Pac-10 teams stand in terms of recruiting for 2009. This post was inspired by this piece by Bob Condotta in The Seattle Times. It focuses on Washington recruiting, but we think it brings something to the table for the whole conference.

What’s interesting is the amount of verbal commitments already made for 2009. USC has 15, which is to be expected, but Stanford has 9!!! Jim Harbough must being doing a hell of a job finding athletes who can meet Stanford’s rigorous entrance requirements. Washington has zero which we also find hard to believe. Willingham might not be there next year, but don’t local players want the chance to play with Jake Locker, especially wide receivers?

A positive for Cougar fans is the fact that they have a damn recruit. After the horrible job done by the last coaching staff, when Paul Wulff took over in December he had only 3 recruits, this staff has got a good start for this year’s class plus one recruit for the class of 2010.

Overall, the conference returns relatively few starters, meaning this year’s recruiting class will most likely be smaller than normal. That usually means better players go to “smaller” schools creating parity.